


the blood of paradise

by valleyofmidnight



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Blood, Episode: s01e01 Pilot, Hand Jobs, Incest, M/M, Masturbation, Pining, Pre-Stanford Era (Supernatural), Sam cries, Scars, Slight Canon Divergence, Stanford Era (Supernatural), carving, spit
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-24
Updated: 2020-06-24
Packaged: 2021-03-04 03:35:18
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,059
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24886924
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/valleyofmidnight/pseuds/valleyofmidnight
Summary: Dean laid claim to everything he saw as his. The knife, the car, Sam himself. And that's what the scar was. Sam would always be his. Jess could have him for the moment, but when the time came, Sam and Dean would be buried next to each other, would share flowers and grass, would decompose until the dirt swallowed them both whole.
Relationships: Dean Winchester/Sam Winchester, Jessica Moore/Sam Winchester
Comments: 12
Kudos: 49





	the blood of paradise

_iii. Shall our blood fail? Or shall it come to be_

_The blood of paradise? And shall the earth_

_Seem all of paradise that we shall know?_

**_“Sunday Morning” - Stevens_ **

It was late, the cicadas screaming in the oppressive summer night air. They were alone in the motel room, their dad off on a job, gone for days, and the sheets felt like the only escape from the heat, from the anxiety. 

Dean had started biting his nails again, his lips chapped, the floor by the door worn from his pacing. But his hands were soft. His hands covered Sam's cheeks, ran down his shoulders. He always looked at Sam like he was a moment away from crumbling under his hands-- Even when he had all of him, even when Sam was pinned between his arms and elbows, under his mouth, he was still so scared Sam was going to disappear. 

He pinned Sam's waist, his blunt fingernails digging into his side. He left marks all over Sam, from his neck to his stomach, marks that would be hard to hide if their dad ever came back. He left marks, Sam assumed, as a way of proving that he could affect Sam, proving that he was there, that he was alive. He pinned Sam down with a certain hunger, nipped at his skin with a certain desperation. And he kept whispering. 

"Can't ever leave, Sammy, can't ever leave me."

Sam ignored the guilt that brought up in him. He would never be able to tell Dean about his fantasies of leaving home (and how sad it was that these motel rooms were home), of going somewhere and doing something with his life. He would never be able to confess to that, and so he would never be able to wash away his guilt. It pooled under his bones the way he imagined his blood would if Dean were to strangle him right there, pinned helplessly under his body. Sam didn't know if he would fight back. If Dean wrapped his hands around his neck and decided he would never let go of him, he wasn't sure if he would complain.

Sam pictured blood pooling around both of them, Dean tearing out his throat, blood flooding the room. Their poor father, if he ever came back, would have to wade through it to find their dried bodies, still clinging to one another. 

Sam gasped-- Dean's hands on his thighs, his mouth greedy on Sam's collarbones. He always fell into these fantasies of dying with Dean even when he was right in front of him. Maybe that was the only way he could rationalize his brother taking such a perverse interest in him. Maybe dying was the only way two boys could fall in love. Blood the only medium for their love songs. Tongue, and teeth, and bleeding.

Or maybe Sam wanted to die before he could leave the nest, before he could make the decision. It would break Dean's heart, break his ribs along with it. Maybe Sam didn't have the conviction to do something so cruel. 

Dean seemed to only live when he was on top of Sam. Every other hour of the day he was following their dad's orders, or making out with whatever girl would have him, but all of it had a certain sheen to it. All of it wasn't the real Dean. Sam saw the real Dean in all his glory, nipping whiskey, crying into his pillow, biting Sam’s hip-- This was the part where Sam couldn't think straight anymore. He had rolled over every part of their relationship, gone back and forth between loving and hating Dean, resolved to get away from shitty motels and hunting-- And then Dean melted him down to his barest self.

Sam whined, clawed, begged. He was nothing but his nerves, pure sensation. He was nothing but whatever Dean wanted to do to him-- Even if it hurt, especially if it hurt. Sam knew pain, he knew cruelty, but the pain that Dean gave him was something so precious, so delicate. It was a gift of the rarest kind. 

Dean's fingers wrapped around Sam's cock, his jeans around his thighs, and it wasn't pain, but it shocked Sam all the same. He sighed, the way wind sighs through leaves, the way God sighs at a sinner. _Please, please, please_ ran through his head on a loop, wanting more. And Dean obliged, his hand picking up its pace, his tongue somewhere on Sam's stomach, somewhere it shouldn't have been, and then on the head of his cock and Sam _keened_ , lost his fingers in Dean's hair, lost himself under Dean's mouth. 

Dean’s other hand was holding his hip, his fingernail scratching something into Sam. A small D, then a small W right beside it. He traced over it again and again, until Sam's skin felt raw, until Sam was pushing his hand away, the corners of his eyes stinging. "Dean, please, Dean." He breathed his name as easily as air. 

Dean pulled his hand back, then pulled back altogether, straddling Sam. He pressed a kiss to his forehead, then moved off the bed completely, leaving Sam with nothing but his mounting shame, his flushed face, and his stinging hip. Sam couldn't bring himself to open his eyes. 

Then a cool, flat _something_ pressed to his skin, his hip, then a sharp pain, a cutting pain. His eyes snapped open and he saw Dean's pocket knife in his hand, digging into Sam. " _Dean_ , Dean what're you doing--" his lungs kicked in a sob, "Dean, _please_ , that _hurts_."

"Just stay still, Sammy, don't worry about it."

A straight line, agonizing, then a curve, worse than before. Sam cried out, trying to keep as still as possible, trying to keep from pulling himself out of Dean's grasp. He could feel his blood pool and run down his side, staining the bed under them. A mark of whatever tangled mess they had between them, a reminder of their forever slipping mortality. They only had a blink in time to possess each other, only one go at this. 

Dean carved his initials into Sam with the same focus he had carved them into the impala when they were younger, with the same force. He set the blade aside, dipped in his brother's blood, and lowered his face, lingering, almost hesitating before pressing his tongue flat against the wound. He lapped like a dog, thirsty and without shame, and Sam wondered how he wasn't absolutely paralyzed, how he could be so brave. It sparked a nest of anxiety in Sam's stomach, made the tears falling down his face that much more pathetic. Dean did whatever he wanted, especially when it concerned Sam, and all Sam thought about was running away. 

Dean pulled Sam up and into a kiss, both of them now sitting, wrapped around each other like snakes. Sam could taste the iron in his blood, could feel Dean's heartbeat alongside it. He was Dean's alone. The proof would be right there until the day the worms found a home in his body. 

\--

The scar felt like a beacon while Sam was at Stanford. He didn't have Dean beside him, didn't know how much he really wanted Dean beside him, but he carried his name on his hip. It itched more once he left, bothered him while he was studying, while he was in class, while he was out of the college bars. And Jess's eyes always lingered on it when they were alone. She never asked, but Sam saw her eyes take it in, saw the sadness in the way her eyebrows pushed together, the way her hands seemed to grasp for nothing. 

It felt like just another part of Sam's body to him. He laid in bed and thought about how the worms would react to it, living in dirt all their lives and suddenly a small, shining, utterly human creation. No animal would ever brand one of their own like that. No animal would want to possess their kin as greedily as Dean did. 

He traced his fingertips over the rise and fall of the scar, thought about making more, about trying to relive the pain. Sam had been so small then, so quick to tears. His eyes felt dry now. He wondered if he could handle it. Jess would make a fuss, sure, probably try to stick him in therapy, but she couldn't stop him. He would hurt her, but she wouldn't leave. 

He thought about Dean's knife, some fancy-ass pocket knife their Dad had probably stolen from someone. Dean would sit for hours with that knife in his hand, pulling it open, pushing it shut, digging his fingernails into the wood, carving his name. He laid claim to everything he saw as his. The knife, the car, Sam himself. And that's what the scar was. Sam would always be his. Jess could have him for the moment, but when the time came, Sam and Dean would be buried next to each other, would share flowers and grass, would decompose until the dirt swallowed them both whole. When the time came, Sam and Dean would be one mound of soil. Sam knew there was no real way to outrun fate, even if he tried his hardest to. 

Dean was the only thing from Sam's childhood, which he kept a firm lid on, that Jess knew about. And the only thing she knew about Dean was that he carved his initials into Sam's hip. Sam wished he could say more-- He wished he could tell her what Dean meant, how they spent their nights wrapped around each other, Dad dead or missing, clinging to each other. He wished he could be honest about his first kiss, how it wasn't some awkward fumbling in some girl's bedroom, but something slow and warm, a gift given to him. He wished he could be honest about his guilt-- that it wasn't just about leaving family, but about leaving _Dean_ and Dean was almost something more than family. He was a part of Sam in a way no one had ever been, not Jess, not his dad, not his roommate. 

Dean found his way into his every thought, especially this late. Jess was sleeping in her dorm and his roommate was out, so it was just him and Dean in his house, even if the scar was all he had of him. It was comforting, when he was younger, a reminder that everything that happened in their world was real. Monsters, and hunting, and falling asleep with their breath intertwining. But now, it just felt like it was taunting him. Sam had left of his own free will, determined to not look back, and yet he found himself being haunted by Dean regardless. 

He ran his hand lower. It had been years since Dean had touched him. Sam could only imagine the calluses on his hands, the roughness in his voice. The years of just Dean and their dad on the road. Sam could only imagine how angry he was, how far he had repressed it, how worn the necklace he wore was, always rubbing it raw-- Sam felt the urge to find him a new one so many times, find some way to mail it to him. He had sat down to write a letter so many times, something long, something that would give Dean's the answers he needed, but he always quit halfway through. Jess finding the crumpled pieces in the trash next to his desk. 

Sam exhaled, closing his eyes, letting himself drift. Blood, and spit, flesh-warm tongue. Dean was always so careful with Sam, like he would break him. Another hand, another imagined connection to Dean, this time on his chest, under his shirt. Dean always laid his hands flat on Sam's stomach, in the hollow in his ribs, trying to take in as much as he could. So that's what Sam did. He laid his hands flat, went slow. He thought of Dean's voice in his ear, telling him to stay still, telling him how much he wanted Sam all to himself.

Sam licked his palm and arched as his hand, Dean's hand, wrapped around his cock, sucking in a breath through his teeth. Dean would be smiling at this point, right against Sam's neck, like a hunter, like a demon, like he knew exactly what he was doing-- Fucking Sam up beyond saving. Sam would never be normal, despite his want for it, despite Jess and his friends, Sam would always be different. And the thought of it ran up Sam's spine in something close to pleasure. 

He was right on the edge, feeling Dean's tongue under his jaw, lapping at his collarbones with twisted greed, when he heard something crash outside his door. He yanked his hand back, snapped up, and watched the door, reaching for the baseball bat he kept beside his bed. He moved quietly, his footsteps soft, his ears perked, his breathing slow and quiet. He opened the door expecting a monster-- He swung with all his force only for the bat to be caught in a calloused hand, a smiling face. _Dean_. In the flesh. 

\--

When they shared motel rooms with only one bed, one cot, they would fall asleep together, leaving whichever seemed more comfortable of the two for their dad in case he came back in the middle of the night. It was almost a ritual, a wish, a spell. Maybe if they left it open they would wake up to his whiskey-soaked breath, maybe they would be able to stay in one place, the three of them, for just a little while. It didn't happen too often. Most nights it was just Sam and Dean, curled around each other. 

Dean had a tendency to slip his hands into Sam's hair while he slept, run his foot up Sam's calf, lifting the legs of his pajama bottoms. Sam would hold Dean's waist, something a bit more obvious, his ears carefully listening to the door, ready to pull away at any moment. Sam had never been under the impression that this is what normal brothers did-- He could tell from the way Dean kept his distance when their dad was around, he could tell from the way Dean talked about himself-- Full of loathing and guilt. 

As Sam's scar healed, Dean held a particular kind of hatred for himself, one that kept him quiet and meek to all of their dad's orders. Sam always hated how he bowed his head like a dog whenever their dad barked some new command. He vowed to never put blind faith in anyone, least of all the man who left his sons alone for days at a time, in strange towns, hunting monsters. A man who didn't even have the guts to tell Sam what he did for a living, but instead had Dean beat him to it. 

Those nights in motel rooms, pitch black except for the pale moon, held secrets between their lips, between Sam and Dean. Soft, fumbling secrets. Pink hands reaching for rosy cheeks, chapped lips connecting with innocent skin. They were never quite sure what they were doing, even with all Dean's experience. It always felt like just another thing they figured out together. Rutting against each other like beasts, holding each other like boys, whispering small morsels somewhere in the valley of midnight. 

The dawn would wash away their sins. They would change their clothes and somehow feel like that could change what they did the night before. And when their dad did come back, they would fall asleep in the back seat, hands not quite touching. And their dad would smile-- At least they have each other, he would think, at least they have family. 

\--

They were in the front seat now, Sam riding shotgun, Dean gripping the wheel. He had grown in the past couple of years. Now in his mid-twenties, he looked more like an adult than he ever had, but the spark in his eye was still child-like. He still cracked jokes, played his music too loud, looked at Sam like he carried the world on his back. He was still Dean. His jaw had filled out, along with the rest of his face, muscles in places Sam had ran his tongue over, but his smile was the same collection of stars. It still knocked the _wind_ out of Sam. 

It was everything he loved about being on the road-- Dean next to him, tapping the wheel to the tune of some classic rock song, just the two of them against whatever came their way-- without any reason he had left. In fact, when he was sitting next to Dean while the sun went down, he couldn't quite remember _why_ he had left. 

But he knew the way Dean looked at him. 

The scar on his side didn't itch. It didn't bother him in the slightest. He didn't feel like he was carrying around some secret because both of them knew the hands that had carved it, both of them knew what it meant. Without Jess in the shadow of his past, without their father burning his eyes into them-- It felt like a gift again. And when they stopped and got a motel, Sam didn't feel his familiar urge to change clothes behind closed doors. Dean had seen all of him, back when he was small, back when he was an awkward mess of puberty-stricken limbs, back when he was nothing but fury, slamming the door on his way out. Dean had seen everything Sam was, inside and out. 

Dean's eyes lingered on his hip. The scar was too bright to not notice, even years after it had healed. It stuck out too much against Sam's California-tanned skin. He stayed on his side of the room, but Sam could see how his hands twitched, how his jaw locked. Sam wanted to draw a line in the sand, keep him on his side, as much as he wanted to assure him that nothing was different. He would still let Dean pin him down against rough motel sheets, he would still let Dean pull him apart, stick his fingers in his mouth. Sam thought about shoving his tongue under Dean's fingernails, trying to find out where he's been based on the dirt he carried with him. 

He found himself thinking a lot about where Dean's been, who he's been with. And he wasn't nearly as _possessive_ as him, but-- Well, he did find himself thinking about it. He wondered if some girl Dean had met in some dim bar had tasted the dirt under his fingernails. He wondered if she had to spit it out. 

Sam crawled under the sheets, and the bed felt so small. He didn't know what they'd do when they found their dad, if they ever found him. Sam knew he wouldn't want to stick around if John was back, knew he wouldn’t stick around anyway. He’d make some excuse, some reason he couldn’t stay with Dean. But Sam saw him move around in the dark, walk from the bed to his bag, from his bag back to his bed. He poured himself a generous glass of whiskey, and Sam could tell it had been a while since he had slept without the help. The moon, from the lonely motel window, shone in his eyes. They were a platonic sort of green, a perfect forest. Sam had seen those eyes full of every emotion under the sun, but now it was tinged with some sort of hopelessness. 

Their eyes met, and Dean set the glass down, running his tongue over his bottom lip. Hopelessness, yes, but also a hunger. A deep, unsatisfied hunger. Sam was familiar with that, even if it had been years since he'd seen it. 

Dean stood, walked over. He was a shadow over Sam as he laid on his side and certainly felt like something dark. He was infecting Sam all over again, bringing him back to his childhood. That murky shame stained his hands, even as he reached out, clung to Dean's shirt. Dean laid a warm hand on Sam's head, and it felt both like his brother's and his dad's. It felt both like kin and like friend. Both like a friend and like a lover. 

Dean leaned down, laid a kiss on Sam's cheek. It sparked something deep in Sam's stomach, pained him somehow. Dean ran his other hand under Sam's covers, slipping across his shirt to the hem, then lifted it. He drew a line with his fingertip under Sam's navel, from one side to another. Sam had hair there now, and Dean slowed once he felt it, a smile spreading across his face. He made some comment, but Sam couldn't hear it. His ears were ringing, his hands going numb. A strange sort of pressure was crawling up his thighs. His lungs were so willing, but his throat was firmly shut. He didn't make a sound as Dean followed the trail under his waistband, then darted back up to his scar, tracing the letters.

Sam gasped, whined. It burned him bad enough to push an assembly of embarrassing sounds out of him. Dean huffed, pulled his hands away, and Sam was on the verge of begging him when he saw Dean pulling off his shoes. He pulled off his shirt right after, went to unbutton his jeans when Sam jerked his hand forward, grabbed his wrist. Too much. Too fast. 

Dean took Sam’s hand in his, lowering himself to kneel at the same time, and raised Sam's knuckles to his mouth, first making contact with his lips, then parting them-- Tongue soft and searing against Sam's skin. His eyes closed and in the same moment, a sound tore itself out of his lungs, something desperate and open. He was a locked box finally finding his key, he was a sky finally clear of clouds, he was a stone washing up on the shore. 

And he was hooked. He would never go back to Jess in one piece. He would die here, some part of him. He would die next to Dean. 

\--

When he tried to go back, laid back on his bed, determined to forget everything that had happened in the days before-- There was no Jess to return to. But there was Dean, pulling him out of a burning building for the second time in his life. There was Dean, sitting with him on the hood of his car, hand on his shoulder like it hadn't been in his mouth hours earlier. And he was there for the nightmares, and he was there for the screaming. And he didn't ask any questions because he didn't _need_ to. 

The fire had burned up any sort of normal life Sam could have. There was no reason to run away anymore. There was just Sam and Dean on the road together, in the car together, sharing motels, and beers (and spit, and blood). 

And the scar didn't ache. It didn't itch. It melded into Sam's skin, getting duller by the day. He drank Dean in because there was no one to stop them. He traced his eyes over his lips, over the slope of his throat-- He had dreams about biting into Dean's throat, sucking out all his blood. He had dreams about Dean beating the shit out of him, about their dad beating the shit out of the both of them. 

And he had dreams about Jess. About kissing her and it tasting like Dean. About Dean burning instead of her, about telling her the truth-- All of it-- and her _screaming_ , and crying, and kicking Sam to the curb. 

But when he woke up, covered in fear-sweat, Dean would be right there, a bed over. He would crawl under the sheets and wrap Dean around himself like he was twelve again. The dreams wouldn't sting so bad. The smell of booze and sweat somehow soothed his wounds. 

Sam was hooked into Dean, hooked onto Dean. He was ten, he was fourteen, he was seventeen all over again, his brother the center of his universe. And it was comfortable. It was the safest he had ever felt. 

**Author's Note:**

> feel free to leave kudos and comments!


End file.
